


Fantasy Turnabout

by pidgewings (violentlypan)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Abusive Relationships (not main focus of story), Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Ace Attorney, Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Canon-Typical Violence, Case 3-1: Turnabout Memories, College, Defense Attorney Mavis, F/M, Gyakuten Saiban 3 | Trials and Tribulations Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, Law School, Legal Drama, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, Prosecutor Angus McDonald, Rated T for some swearing and violence probably, Slow Burn, canon-atypical memory manipulation, lots of headcanons used for mavis because she has no characterization and that makes me sad, more specific tags chapter by chapter, no betas we die like men, some inaccuracies because i'm just relying on background info
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28332288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentlypan/pseuds/pidgewings
Summary: Mavis didn’t know where Angus had disappeared to, she told Ms. Rahul, their fourth grade teacher. Really- he hadn’t told her. If she knew she’d be looking for him.She didn’t know, she repeated for the militiamen who showed up at the door of the Roughridge-Highchurch home.Until junior year of college, she doesn't know. And then she does. And shehasto find out why he disappeared.Or: Ace Attorney AU, where Mavis plays the role of Phoenix and Angus plays the role of Edgeworth, except, y'know, it's D&D so there's magic involved, and I'm not a coward like Capcom so I'm gonna ship the hell out of them.
Relationships: Mavis & Angus McDonald, Mavis & Mookie, Mavis/Angus McDonald, Mavis/OFC (temporary)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	1. chapter 1

Mavis and Angus met for the first time at Sunflower Elementary School.

Mavis didn’t think much of Angus. Not that she disliked him, to be clear- she just didn’t have that much of an opinion on him. His hair was fluffy and bouncy, and he had a weird sort of natural intelligence that had gotten him moved up a grade, and he fed the classroom’s pet fish when Ms. Tinny forgot. At icebreakers, he explained that his name was Angus McDonald, his favorite color was green, and he was an only child. Mavis didn’t really talk to him much. 

Until one spring day, in third grade, when Mavis was in the nurse’s office for a cut on her hand. The cleric took a glance at her, cast a quick Cure Wounds, and she was patched up and ready to go back to class. But when she got there, the whole class was staring at her.

She shyly made her way to her seat, and the classroom’s eyes followed her.

“Mavis, come here,” Ms. Tinny said.

Mavis’s first instinct was to burst into tears, but she was a big girl now- almost nine- and that was _unbecoming of a lady your age, Mavis,_ her mother always said, so she rose with shaky legs and walked to the front of the class.

There was a beat of uncomfortable, terrifying silence, before Ms. Tinny asked, “Did you steal Angus’s lunch money?”

“No,” Mavis said truthfully. “I was at the nurse.”

The silence stretched on until-

“Liar!” one of the students yelled, and then the entire class broke into yelling. “You stole it! You were out of class! Mavis stole the money!”

Her breath hitched, trying to hold back the sob clawing its way up her throat. “I- I _didn’t_ , I’m-”

“Mavis, tell Angus you’re sorry,” Ms. Tinny said. “And give him back the money.”

“I don’t have the money, I- I didn’t steal it!” 

“Enough!”

Mavis’s head snapped to Angus in shock. He was on his feet. “She said she didn’t take it. And you didn’t, did you?”

“N-no,” she said. “I didn’t, I didn’t- I wouldn’t have-”

“I believe you,” Angus told her. “And we can find the real culprit. I have cornstarch from the project I did for the science fair. If we dust my bag with it, we can find fingerprints. Then, if we match the fingerprints to students, we can find out who took it.”

“Really?” Mavis asked. Her curiosity had been piqued- this sounded fun, actually, and she _didn’t_ steal it.

“Wait,” said the student who yelled first- his name was Ben, if Mavis remembered correctly. “But that would take so long!”

“I can do it fast! Ms. Tinny, can we do it?”

“No, it would take too long,” Ben said again.

“I don’t see why not. You have the cornstarch?” Ms. Tinny asked Angus. 

“Okay, I did it!” Ben yelled. 

The whole class went silent and looked at him. “I just- I wanted the money for a new action figure,” he mumbled.

“I’m very disappointed in you,” Ms. Tinny said after a long moment. “Please give Angus his money back and apologize.”

And thus began Mavis and Angus’s friendship.

-

Third and fourth grades were a blur for Angus. A treehouse in Mavis’s backyard, a sandpit at recess. He taught her to think critically about everything, to spell in neat cursive, and to read Caleb Cleveland. She taught him the names of the stars, like her stepfather had taught her, how to climb a tree, and how to do the math problems he struggled with. 

And then in fourth grade, his grandfather died.

He was home, after a school day. His grandfather wasn’t there. Maybe at the store?

There was a knock at the door, that Angus didn’t answer, until through the door-

“Are you Angus McDonald?” one asked- a half-elf, badge clipped to their jacket lapel. Angus pulled the door open. If they knew his name...

“Yes, sir,” Angus answered, feeling all at once very small. 

“Do you know what happened?”

Angus paused, took a breath.

_What evidence is in front of him?_

Unfamiliar uniformed people looking for _him-_ him, not his grandfather. His grandfather missing- he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong, so it wasn’t jail. 

He made a few calculations all at once.

One, his grandfather was either dead or gravely injured.

Two, these people were probably here to take him elsewhere. 

Three, he did not want to go to the elsewhere.

So if he wanted to stay with his grandfather, he had to-

“Y-yes. Can I get my things?”

It was almost imperceptible, but the gaze of the half-elf in front of him softened. 

“Sure, kiddo. We’ll wait here for you.”

Angus turned and dashed upstairs to throw everything into his bag. He had a lot of things, but he would have to pick which were the most important. _Triage._ A word his grandfather had taught him.

Into his school bag went his notebook, his investigative equipment, some of his grandfather’s things. His favorite stuffed animal; a change of clothes; his money. 

He ran into his grandfather’s room, next. Packed carefully a few things. The set of cutlery that his grandfather told him never to touch, because his grandmother had made it; the little mirror he had always used when brushing his hair; his pocketwatch, still on the countertop. That one went into his vest. He was careful not to touch anything, not to leave fingerprints, in his grandfather’s room.

He scribbled down a note and left it on his own bed. _Give all my things,_ it said, _to Mavis Roughridge._

Then Angus McDonald shimmied out the window and ran away, down the streets of Neverwinter, to find his own way.

-

Mavis didn’t know where Angus had disappeared to, she told Ms. Rahul, their fourth grade teacher. Really- he hadn’t told her. If she knew she’d be looking for him.

She didn’t know, she repeated for the militiamen who showed up at the door of the Roughridge-Highchurch home. 

She missed him. Angus had left her all his things when he left; she slept on his pillow, now, trying to hold the smell of his home in her nose for as long as she could. She wrote him messages and sent them out into the ocean in plastic bottles, corked up tight and set adrift. One memorable time, in sixth grade, she asked a favorite librarian of hers to send him a Sending from her. The librarian had tried, but answered- sounding startled- that he had some form of mental blocking up. She shouldn’t even have been surprised. _Of course, of all people, he would._

The worst was-

if it had been her, running away from home, he would have found her in weeks. Run away with her. But she didn’t know how to find him. She was never the detective he was.

She went to sixth and seventh grade. It turned out she was pretty good at science; she got good grades, even though she was mostly the one taking care of Mookie now that Merle was gone, so she didn’t have as much time to do homework. She was, she realized, becoming an adult; probably much earlier than she should have had to, but it didn’t matter. Mom was busy with the pearl farm and Merle was gone, so it was okay that she had to cook and clean and do homework and take care of Mookie. 

And then.

And then in the middle of eighth grade, the world _shattered_ and exploded and there were black tendrils everywhere and she was sprinting, _terrified,_ down a street in a city she barely knew, vision fuzzing around her with the sheer _quantity_ of black blobby people and then she was racing pell-mell into a tree and then it _wasn’t a tree anymore-_

After that, life changed a lot. 

Mavis threw herself into environmentalism. She was interested, she knew, in plants. Now that Merle, her absent-father-turned-multiversal-hero, was around sometimes, he was willing to teach her. And she had the dryads, Hurley and Sloane, when she went to Goldcliff on the weekends. And she had school. She studied the ecology of the world, the way druids helped cultivate the forest and keep the balance of the world. She studied math and economics and the economics of what it would take to help restore places like the Felicity Wilds, which had apparently had so much necromantic energy pumped into it its ecology was semi-permanently thrown into disarray. 

For her senior year, she knew she _needed_ to get to one of the top schools. She wanted to become a top ecological scientist. So she took on some extra credit for her Magical Sciences class.

-

One Warlock level higher and one forest bond stronger, she set about doing her service project for the term: cleansing a forest that had, temporarily, been heavily trafficked by a tourist service. She magicked a plant-based filtration system for the water that would keep toxins out without influencing the flow of fish or water. She spoke to the creatures that lived in the woods and helped excavate places where cans and glass had been buried that would never go away and would do nothing but leech heavy metals into the dirt. She learned spell after spell after spell to make things easier. Then she went home, made dinner and lunch for her and Mookie, did her homework, and passed out on the couch before getting up for school in the morning and doing it all again.

Eventually, Mookie took notice. “Dude, you look awful.”

“Thanks,” Mavis snapped back, erasing the improper verb tense she had just written and scribbling the correct term in Druidic and then re-erasing it and rescribbling it in Elvish, which was the language she was _actually attempting_ to write in.

“Not like that,” Mookie said. “I mean, yeah, like that, but also like. Dude. Mave. Mavie. Magic Mavis, elder sister, light of my life, when was the last time you _fucking took a nap?_ ”

“I slept last night, Mookie. I’m fine.”

“When was the last time you took a _break?_ ” 

“I’m _fine._ Leave it alone.” She flipped the page over venomously and started filling in the conjugation chart. 

“So let me get this straight,” Mookie drawled. “You’ve been going to school, going to school clubs, doing your mysterious afterschool project, coming home, doing the entire household’s worth of chores, doing your homework, and then what? Just conking out? You’re gonna burn yourself out.” 

“I can’t afford to take breaks. I need to get into this college,” Mavis hissed. “I need to get out there into the world and do things.”

They were both silent for a moment but for the scratching of Mavis’s pencil.

Eventually, Mookie broke the silence. “You’re eighteen and you know four languages-”

“Three. I’m not fluent in Elvish.”

“Four, you’re fluent enough to curse me out in it. You are multiclassed into _three different classes._ And you are taking care of an entire household at once. I’m sixteen, I can do some chores.”

“Technically _Mom_ should be doing some chores.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Mookie grumbled, “sleeps in the _pearl shop,_ so she can go get eaten by an oyster for all I care.”

“ _Mookie._ ”

“ _Mavis.”_

There was a pause for a second, before Mavis sighed and pulled another piece of paper in front of her. There was no way she was going to win this argument, and… it _would_ be nice to have a little bit of free time, wouldn’t it?  
  


“ _Fine,_ but if I catch your grades slipping-”

“You’re not _Mom._ ”

“No, I’ll be meaner than Mom is.”

-

Mavis got into college with flying colors.

She declared her major as environmental sciences with a minor in magical studies, focusing on natural magic. This was her _dream._ This was what she’d worked towards for _years._ _Decades._ She threw herself into her work. 

College was everything she’d ever dreamed of. Her _studies_ were everything she’d ever dreamed of. She met exciting new people and learned new things and stayed up all night studying. It was perfect. It was like she had found her calling.

Freshman year was amazing. Sophomore year was… stressful but amazing. She loved her major, and she loved her teachers. She didn’t go to parties, and she only talked to Mookie like once a month, but she learned _so much._

And she was _so tired._

The second month of junior year found her exhausted, slumped halfway off the couch in the common area, black curly hair falling everywhere; it was tangled and she hadn’t had a haircut since that June. Her roommate had a girl over, _again,_ and fuck if she didn’t love her roommate but _Pan,_ she was _so_ girl-crazy it made Mavis’s head spin-

“Hang on,” she muttered, picking up one of the magazines that her RA liked to leave lying around on coffee tables. Familiar eyes stared off the cover of it, in familiar coke-bottle glasses. 

_Angus McDonald- Dark Suspicions of a Demon Prosecutor,_ read the headline. _How does the prodigial Oakleaf graduate get his verdict?_

There are a few thoughts that skimmed the surface of her consciousness.

The first was that he had _grown._ Gone were the baby-soft cheeks, the childishly small nose, the oval-round eyes. In their places were a squareish jaw, a delicate nose. Eyes narrowed at the camera. Not suspicious; _angry._ Fire flickered in the palm of his hand, glinting off his glasses and face. The hair remained the same; poofy, fluffy, soft, a dandelion-head of curls.

The second was that this career path is one she _never_ anticipated for him. He wanted to be a detective. He knew he would be one. It was his dream, and it was her dream for him. He had been _stellar,_ a phenomenal detective even at age 7. 

The third was that _something had happened._ There was no way nothing had happened. This man up and disappeared at age 9, and reappeared eleven years later as a suspicious attorney getting put in tabloids. He had a _suit_ on and everything; forest green with a white tie.

  
She had grown up with a detective by her side, and by _Pan,_ she was using every trick he had taught her to get to the bottom of this. 

She inhaled and exhaled.

Then she got to her feet and went to the bathroom to make sure her hair was presentable before she could go to the registrar for the major change form.

-

Within thirty minutes she was sitting in front of her advisor with a sheaf of papers in hand.

“Miss Roughridge-” 

“Mavis, please-”

“Mavis, I don’t- Law isn’t… a major.”

“It’s not?” 

“No. So- I assume this means you want to follow a career in the law, probably as an attorney?”

Mavis gritted her teeth. “Yes.”

“Okay, so the way you’d do that is in your last year, towards the end of the year, you’d start studying for the FLSAT- the Fantasy Law School Admission Test. You would sit the FLSAT, and if you got a good score, you could get into a law school. You would attend law school for three years, and then you would have to sit the Fantasy Bar Exam for Faerun. Once you get through that, you would be considered a lawyer.”

“And I can sit the FLSAT even with a degree in environmental sciences?”  
  


“Yes. It’s uncommon; most people take a political sciences degree, but that’s mostly so that they have some courses in law under their belt already. I can certainly help you get into those courses if you’d like.”

“That would be fantastic, thank you,” Mavis said. She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. 

“Of course,” he said, scribbling it down in his notes, somewhere. He probably had a whole file on her, or something. She didn’t know how advisors worked. Sue her. “Miss Roughridge-”

“Mavis.”

“Mavis, can I ask you a personal question?”

“I- yes, of course.” Mavis shifted uneasily. She didn’t mind answering questions, but _Pan_ did they give her chills when phrased like that.

“Why did you want to change majors now? As far as I can tell, you have straight As, and you seem invested in your major. You- as I understand it, you _love_ Environmental Science. Why study law?”

Mavis clenched her jaw. “I’m following an idiot.”


	2. chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mavis's friends try and support her, but are fairly bewildered by the whole thing. (Or: the process of getting into law school.)

Mavis’s friends were,  _ understandably, _ a little shocked at the sudden change of pace.

Her classmates threw her a “get well soon” party. No amount of explanation could dissuade them from their concept that she clearly had some form of terminal brain disease that would leave her dead by senior year. 

Horrible.

“For the last time,” she grumbled as she was being frog-marched into the dorms she was trying very hard to move out of, “I am not sick, dying, or possessed. I am a sane human being who is trying  _ very _ hard to remain sane and if you all keep going the way you’re going- oh for the love of  _ fuck _ -”

She glared at the room full of people. “You brought my  _ stepdad  _ into this?”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Merle said sympathetically from across the room. “Apparently they want me to cast  _ Zone of Truth. _ ”

Ridiculous. 

She tilted her head back to look at the ceiling and/or pray to Pan to grant her mercy,  _ please. _ “Your interventions will succeed in stopping me from going to law school.” she hissed. “ _ Because instead, I will be in jail for aggravated assault, so help me Pan- _ ”

She made the fucking wisdom saving throw. 

She failed it.

Pan  _ damn  _ her stepfather.

“Okay,” her classmate London announced. “Why are you going to law school?”

She inhaled. She exhaled. “Because,” she said slowly, “my childhood best friend, who everyone was  _ convinced _ was going to be a detective until he  _ disappeared  _ when I was  _ ten, _ has suddenly reappeared as some form of ‘demon prosecutor,’ and there is no way in hell I am letting him get away with that.”

There was a moment of collective silence.

“So you’re chasing him to law school,” Kylie, the tiefling who sat two rows down, repeated. “Couldn’t you send him a Sending?”

“I tried when I was eleven. He has some form of  _ strong  _ mental blocking up. I don’t even know Sending; I’m not the right type of warlock to break the bonds, either, and I haven’t talked to my patron in like a year.”

“You can block a Sending?”

“Some form of anti-scrying,” Mavis shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“So write a letter,” Maxwell, the halfling who lived across the hall suggested. “It’s not unheard of, if you don’t have his Stone frequency.”

Mavis pressed her lips into a tight line. “I didn’t think of that,” she said without thinking, and then, “Shit, I didn’t mean to say that. Or that. Fuck. I- I’m gonna shut up now because I’m scared this Zone of Truth is gonna seriously make me repeat some stuff-”

She clapped a hand over her mouth, irritated at her own low Wisdom stat as the rest of the room burst into raucous laughter.

Pan damn it.

-

_ Dear Angus, _ she started the letter.

She cursed under her breath and Prestidigitated it. 

_ Angus, _

_ I’m not sure whether you remember me. My name is Mavis Roughridge; we were friends in elementary school, before you ran away. _

“Fuck. That sounds so accusatory,” she mumbled under her breath. Prestidigitated it again.

“Everything okay?” her roommate Emmett asked.

“I’m trying to write that letter you guys persuaded me into writing,” Mavis explained, chewing on the end of her quill pen before realizing and setting it down. 

Emmett scooted their chair over painstakingly. It made a horrible sound, and she braced internally for the noise complaints she was gonna get from the room below them. “Just tell him you’ve had a crush on him since fourth grade-”

“Hey hey hey,” she interrupted. “That is, okay, first of all,  _ unfounded,  _ and second of all what do you mean ‘just,’ that sounds like it’d be  _ really difficult _ to tell someone about-”

They shrugged. “So why are you asking me?”

“GOOD QUESTION,” Mavis said. “I’m not. That’s why.”

_ Angus,  _

_ My name’s Mavis Highchurch-Roughridge. I don’t know if it’s too much to hope that you remember me; it’s been a while since I last saw you. We both attended Sunflower Elementary. You taught me cursive. _

_ I’m writing mostly out of curiosity, I suppose. I saw you recently on the cover of a tabloid, and saw that you had become a prosecutor. I guess I just wanted to know why? What happened? You disappeared when we were ten; I never solved that mystery, and I guess maybe it’s cheating to just ask, but it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? I always thought you would become an investigator when you got older, but sometimes people are surprising. _

_ Write back if you can. I’m curious. _

_ \- Mavis Highchurch-Roughridge _

She carefully folded the letter and tucked it into an envelope, leaving it open on the desk. She wasn’t finished with it just yet, because- as predicted- Emmett glanced over at her. “Can I read it?”

“Sure,” Mavis said, and pulled a piece of paper towards her to get started on her Advanced Planar Systems homework. 

-

Angus McDonald, in his office, a week later, carefully opened and unfolded the letter. It wasn’t like the others he usually got; there was no fancy seal, just plain pink wax, with a small leaf motif embedded- he assumed there must have been an actual leaf pressed into it, when it was being sealed. 

His eyes scanned the lines. Mavis Roughridge.. _. _

He thought of the seashell, sitting on his dresser at home, that she had given him once. She probably didn’t even remember giving it to him. He’d taken it when he left his grandfather’s.

He held the letter to the candlelight a moment. Sure enough, more writing bloomed into existence, at the bottom of the letter.

_ I miss you. It’s been years. I’m not mad, or upset, I just want to know why. Do you remember me? Do you still investigate every mystery? You must, if you’re reading this. You taught me to hide messages like this.  _

_ Please write back. I know you must remember me. You’ve got to, if you knew I would do this, if you’re reading this. _

_ Maybe you’re not reading this. _

_ Please write back. _

Angus took his glasses off, polished them, and then slipped the paper into a pile on his desk when someone knocked. “Come in,” he called. “Campbell, you have the files on Muller?”

-

Mavis never got a response.

She  _ did, _ however, get into law school. The whole hall had almost rioted when they found out- she’d unfolded her FLSAT results with hands shaking so bad she had to use a Mage Hand instead, and found inside the results-

“172!” someone over her shoulder had announced, because she wasn’t sure she could trust herself to speak, and the hall had  _ erupted _ into raucous yells, because  _ holy shit, Mavis, that was so good! _ and  _ we knew you could do it, we never doubted you for a second! _

“Don’t need Zone of Truth to know that’s a lie,” Mavis mumbled. Were her fingers always this numb? 

“So, you’re gonna apply to law school?” Kylie asked excitedly.

There was a moment’s pause.

“Fuck,” Mavis realized, “I don’t know how to apply to law school.”

There was a moment’s silence before the hall burst out into laughter.

“I guess- do we ask the library?” Maxwell wondered. “We could ask the library. Like, find a book on applying to law school.”

“Nonono,” London said. “Student advisor. Mavis, you gotta bring us to your student advisor. They’ll know what to do.”

“All-  _ all _ of you? There are, like, five of us, this seems unnecessary-”

“All of us- all of us just, walk in there, like, hey what’s up,” Emmett grinned. 

“Pan, you’re gonna be the  _ death  _ of me,” Mavis groaned.

-

“Miss Roughridge?” 

“I’m sorry,” Mavis sighed. “They insisted. Um. I was hoping for advice on how to apply to law school?”

There was a long pause as the advisor took in the five-student crowd in front of him, Maxwell leaning an arm on Mavis’s head despite the fact that he wasn’t that much taller than her, London and Emmett in matching “Sizzle It Up With Taako!” hoodies, Kylie towering over them with four horn piercings on each horn and more on her ears and a fresh tattoo on her neck from, like, two days ago. Mavis could feel her face  _ flaming  _ red.

“I- of course. You took the FLSAT?” 

“She got a 172,” chorused the small army of twenty-somethings.

The advisor blinked a few times and then rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

“Is there any chance you could leave this to be a one-on-one conversation? I really don’t need all of you here for this.”

“No,” London said.

“I’m so sorry,” Mavis sighed. “They can leave.”

“We can stay!” Emmett insisted, resting a hand on her head.

“Emmett I will  _ cast Thunderwave on you. _ ” She didn’t actually have the spell prepared, but it was the thought that counted, right?

“We can leave!” Emmett decided.

-

Turns out law school? Really  _ fucking difficult. _

Mavis had heard stories. She didn’t think herself  _ above _ them, not really. But she had always gotten good grades. Stellar grades. School had been difficult for her, but she studied and her studying always came out better in the end.

Law school looked at that and spat on it and stomped on it.

Her social life had disappeared. All but the last vestiges of basic self-care had vanished. She was living off a shower every two days and her hair was tangled and she still couldn’t get fucking  _ property law  _ through her skull. A lot of her classmates had resorted to using Encode Thoughts to suspend concepts as physical entities until they needed them. She was determined not to stoop to that level; that was cheating, after all.

She crammed for Ethics and then she crammed for Torts and then she went to her job at a local clothing retailer and then she realized she hadn’t eaten dinner in like, two days, and she decided she needed  _ help. _

She called Mookie.

Mookie took one look at her living situation and said, “Okay, fuck off to the library, I’m gonna fix your shit,” and Pan bless Mookie Highchurch-Roughridge, she came back to a clean (and clean-smelling!) space. He had even made her a chore chart, like she had done for him when they were younger and he couldn’t focus on anything long enough to do them properly without that kind of structure. The cause was different, but the effect was the same. 

Merle dropped by, too, towards the end of the first year, and sighed, and called Taako in, and Taako (who Mavis had met maybe three times at that point and was still a little starry-eyed-stunned by the presence of) flicked his wand absently and a thick cloud of magic settled around the room. “It’s a spell of my own creation, my dude,” he explained. “Your room’s clean now, right? So at midnight, it’ll just go back to this unless you’re using it. It’s like an automatic cleaning system.”

“Pan,” Mavis breathed. “You’re a lifesaver, Taako. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, my dude!” Taako grinned. 

After he left, Merle stayed behind for a moment. 

“Merle?” Mavis asked. “Is there something-?”

“Can I- Mavis, kiddo, your hair is- ” He paused, a silence as if recalculating. “I just... Can we pretend, for a moment, that I was a normal and good dad? Because I. Look, I just. Here. Can you- will you sit down for a moment?”

Unsure, Mavis settled onto the bed. She wasn’t sure where this was going, but Merle looked so nervous- for a moment, it was eleven years ago and they were out in Neverwinter, Mookie sucking on a root beer barrel and Merle was cheerfully ruffling his hair and calling him “fireball.”

Merle climbed up behind her and carefully, oh-so-carefully, started pulling a brush through the ends of her hair. “When was the last time you combed this?”

Mavis stayed silent for a moment, unsure how to answer. Apparently, this was all the answer Merle needed, because he was carefully casting a  _ Create Water _ and wetting her hair down, before starting to painstakingly brush it out.

“I used to do this for Taako, you know,” he said suddenly, “when we were at the Bureau. And before that, too, on the Starblaster. He never could take care of himself.” 

She sat very still. The moment was spun-sugar fragile; both, Mavis was sure, were acutely aware of what the time had ripped from them, the father-daughter relationship never as strong as what it could have been. She was afraid a single movement, a single breath, would shatter the cautious trust- the heel of a boot cracking the icy surface of a river, a stone through a pane of finely crafted, paper-thin glass. 

“He used to spend days at a time trying to crack the ‘code’ of each planet,” Merle continued. “I’d find him in his room, half-tranced, trying to pretend he was doing just fine, with his hair in a big matted-  _ mess, _ at the back of his head, hidden under his hat. I got pretty good at braiding hair pretty fast.”

_ Oh, so that’s what he’s doing, _ she thought. She hadn’t known what his end goal was. “Your hair’s a bit curlier than his, but… it’s nothing I haven’t done before. Here, I’m done, you can touch it.” 

Under her fingers, her own hair was sleek and neatly tied back. She turned to look at him; his eye was soft. “I used to do this for Taako’s… well, his ward, of sorts. Really, he was his son. He disappeared, after the whole Story-and-Song thing.”

“Oh,” Mavis managed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. The kid got on my nerves, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Used to tease him about it, all the time. Wish I hadn’t, now.”

“Did he-?”

“Nah. Taako met up with him about two years ago, once he had gotten a job that was in the public eye. I don’t know how much they talk, these days. Their relationship is pretty rocky.”

_ Not unlike us, _ went unsaid. 

“I don’t want that to happen to us,” Merle said unexpectedly. “I- it would be a real shame if I lost you, kiddo. You know that?”

“Yeah,” Mavis murmured. “I- I should reach out more. I’m sorry, Merle.”

“I should never have left you two,” Merle said. “You didn’t deserve that, not with your mother busy all the time. You should’ve gotten a childhood. You didn’t get to be a kid. And- I can’t help but feel, y’know, like that’s kind of on me.”

Mavis considered her response. “I don’t blame you. Mom cared-  _ cares- _ a lot about money, and not a lot about anything else, you know? I mean, she didn’t even attend Mookie’s highschool graduation. I don’t know that she considers me her kid anymore, and, well, you’re doing better than her in that regard.”

“Of course, but- if I had  _ died, _ at any point, when I was looking for the Relics or-”

“But you  _ didn’t, _ ” Mavis said, trying not to think about it. “Except in Refuge, you didn’t die. You stayed alive for us.”

There was a moment’s pause where both of them considered a million things left unsaid.

“I mean, I stayed alive for lots of reasons there. Like, if I died, I’d never get to make musical references at that miner who tried to kill me,” Merle said after a moment’s silence, and she rolled her eyes and elbowed him gently. 

“Terrible,” she huffed, with zero venom behind it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> realized when i wrote this that angus and mavis did in fact meet in lunar interlude IV so we're just gonna casually gloss over that and pretend angus didn't snoop after merle because he was scared of merle a little bit


	3. chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some major TW's and CW's; I'll put the specifics in the end notes, but the generals are abusive relationships, poisoning, and manipulation.

By the second semester of the first year of law school, she had a pretty decent routine down.

That wasn’t to say that it wasn’t the most difficult thing she’d ever done. It absolutely was- she had made a few friends, and they met regularly at a bar to study and talk and drink, which made things easier in some ways, but it also meant she had no time for a job. Which sucked, because _loans._

So she let some of the other friends in the group move in. 

Which was, like, okay, it was _fine._ Look, they all lived in Rockport, they all went to Oakleaf Law, they were all busy as fuck and none of them could afford individual rent. Maybe it wasn’t, _strictly speaking,_ legal- after all, it was a one-bedroom place, and there were like three of them, so Mavis was sleeping in the closet (she was a dwarf, it’s not like she was scared of the dark or cramped in there.) Andrew Hansen who sat behind her in her Maritime Law class got the bed so that they could spread their wings without knocking themself summarily onto the floor and crunching their wings, and Heather Clay who she had met through an International Law three-class seminar took the fold-out couch because she didn’t really sleep that heavily anyway- she was a half-elf, and explained it as “well, I don’t trance, but I don’t _not_ trance, yanno” so she was fine with being woken up by loud noises outside.

And of course, it had drawbacks. Like- Heather left dishes in the sink, _constantly,_ and Andrew claimed that they could _hear_ the germs, and somehow _Mavis_ got stuck with cleaning them even though the sink was like the same height as she was. And Andrew had a nasty habit of flinging their wings out at the slightest noise, which not _only_ bumped into everything because they had a _huge wingspan,_ but was also powerful enough to knock Mavis fully to the ground if she happened to stand behind them. And Mavis _knew_ she had a bit of a plant problem, which is to say that she may or may not have used plants as coping mechanisms and filled the entire apartment with them, which made it _very difficult_ for Heather and Andrew to move shit around or put their things down, because the nearest solid surface probably had at least two pots of various edible plants on it.

But it _did_ mean that when she got home from her part-time job with the local ecology museum towards the end of the semester one weekend, she was faced with an absurdly-sized cake in her favorite flavor (chocolate, obviously) and confetti and the news that she’d gotten into the summer associateship she’d applied for, at Johnson Law. Her heart swelled with pride and love even as her lungs were, er, forcibly constricted-

“Guys,” she creaked around the massive hug she was receiving. “I really do appreciate it but I’m also a terrifying distance off the ground?”

Heather gently dropped her. 

She failed her dexterity save and hit the ground with an _oof_ and two points of damage.

Both the others winced.

“I’m pressing charges,” Mavis said with no heat behind it. “How did you make that cake? I mean, I haven’t been out that long, I’m a little terrified by the sheer speed at which you got it together.”  
  


“Maaaaagic,” Andrew said, and Heather laughed.

“No, really.” Mavis headed to the kitchen to grab a knife. “How?”

“No, they’re not kidding,” Heather said. “Unseen Servant is a hell of a spell.”

“Oh, fuck, right. We’re bards,” Mavis remembered. Most lawyers were, at least to one level; while Andrew was a level 1 bard with 5 levels in Fighter to back it up, Heather was level 7, pure bard. Most people didn’t multiclass more than once, though.

“How did you _forget?_ ” Andrew laughed. “Oh wait hang on you’re a fuckin’- four classes, right?”

“In my defense,” Mavis grumbled, “it was supposed to only be three. Some of us are _multidimensional,_ Andrew.”

“I’m multidimensional,” Heather objected hotly. “And if you say I’m not then you don’t get any cake.”

“All I’m saying is that some of us weren’t total _theater nerds_ in high school!”

“Some of us didn’t _live in the woods_ either, but go off,” Andrew huffed.

Mavis put some of the cake on a plate for herself. She had no idea how they were going to get through this thing; it would be leftovers for _weeks._ Still, she was never one to pass up free food. “I didn’t live in the woods. I had a perfectly acceptable home. I just happened to have a lot of interests.”

“Mmmmmm,” Heather said.

“I’m not lying!” 

“MMMMMMMMMMMMMM.”

“I’m suing both of you for libel.”

“Go off,” they both said at once.

“I’m SUING.”

-

It was through the summer associateship that she met _her._

The courthouse library; she was grabbing some reference papers for Ms. _“Call me Jade”_ Johnson. It was a small firm; just her and Ms. Johnson and a paralegal and a secretary, practicing criminal defense. Which is why she had applied there as her first choice; going into criminal defense was the only way she would see him again. (Though, she realized, she’d started liking law in and of itself, really. It was turning out to be a lot more interesting and engaging than she had anticipated, and fuck it, she’d always had a dramatic side.)

She had been pulling some old case files down from a middle shelf, teetering precariously on a stepladder, when someone tapped her on the back and she promptly toppled backward onto them.

Her papers went everywhere, but she couldn’t focus on that because she was looking into the eyes of an incredibly attractive tiefling, who had made a mostly-incoherent noise as she hit the floor that only _vaguely_ sounded like a word. Her wizard’s hat- deep rich purple, mostly translucent- had fallen to the floor.

_Holy shit,_ she thought, _I’m so dead._

Then she realized she was still on top of her and frantically scrambled up to gather her papers. “Oh Pan I’m _so sorry-_ ”

“No! No, don’t apologize,” the tiefling said, friendly. She wore a beautiful silver dress that wafted around her legs like gauze and her eyes were glinting purple and _wow_ holy shit, Mavis felt a sudden wave of just- pure _love_ crash over her. Holy fuck. Was this what a crush felt like? _Wow._ “I, um. I really like your sweater!”

“I- oh! Um!!! I really like your dress it’s really pretty and, uh, I have no idea how it’s staying so floaty after I just, um, well, kind of knocked you to the ground, is there- is- magic????” Mavis blurted all in one breath, and then felt herself blush flaming red to her ears, holy Pan, _fuck_ dwarf genetics and her damnable inability to keep a blush from lighting her face up like a lightbulb. “I’m. I’m _so_ sorry, I’ll. I’ll just be out of your hair-” her _unfairly pretty_ hair, _Pan almighty-_

“No! No, it’s- it’s fine,” she said. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you like that! I just wanted to, um, reach some books behind you? Er, I’m Vin.”

“Mavis! Mavis Roughridge-Highchurch,” Mavis said, feeling very foolish. “I’m a summer associate with Johnson Law.”

“Ooh, are you going to be a lawyer?”

“I mean, that’s the plan! I’m not very good at it yet, but I’m learning. I’m at Skyline Law.”

“I think that’s really cool,” Vin smiled. “Lawyers seem so cool to me! They’re all like, ‘objection!’” 

“It’s not _just_ objecting, but yeah, that part’s pretty fun! What do you do?”

-

Mavis practically _skipped_ back into the apartment.

“Good day?” Andrew asked from where they were perched in their usual spot on the back of the couch, reviewing something for their own summer associateship.   
  


“GREAT day,” Mavis said, flinging herself onto the couch to hug a pillow. “FANTASTIC day. I got a cute girl’s nuuuuuumber, and she gave me this cute pendant!” She held it up to the light; it hung around her sternum, a delicate gold chain with a glass vial in the center of a golden heart pendant. “She’s so _pretty,_ Andrew. _So pretty.”_

“So when are you getting married?” they asked. It was supposed to be a tease, Mavis knew, but it didn’t even _land_ like one- 

“I could _propose,_ ” Mavis said dreamily.

“Holy shit you are _gone_ on this girl,” Andrew said. “Wow. This is out of character for you. Do you- should I like, _Detect Magic_ on you, make sure you haven’t been charmed or something-”

“No!” Mavis almost shouted. “No, she would _never,_ she’s- she’s so _sweet_ and so _gorgeous-_ just, like, _holy shit,_ you know? She’s so pretty, Andrew. I would probably, like, die for her.”

“Do you _hear yourself_ right now,” they said.

“Yeah.” Her eyes slipped shut. “I know it’s a lot but like, _wow,_ you know? She’s _so pretty,_ Andrew.”

“You’ve said this.” Their tone is dry. “Are you _sure you don’t want me to_ do a quick Detect Magic.”

“Really,” Mavis said. “I’m _fine._ ”

-

Holy shit, holy shit, holy _shit,_ she was not fine.

Which is to say that she was sitting in a jail cell staring unseeingly at Ms. Johnson. “I didn’t kill him,” she repeated.

“I believe you,” Ms. Johnson said patiently. “But I need you to tell me what happened.”

Haltingly, she explained- Vinnie’s ex had showed up, and started talking to her about how her Vinnie was a terrible person, and how she was the daughter of some serial killer who had poisoned a bunch of people, and how he had tried to get her to break up with Vinnie, and pulled a potion out of her hand- an-over-the-counter healing potion she had been taking sips of after every meal, because she had a cold but didn’t really want to use the whole potion- she’d hoped it would last long enough. 

She’d pushed him- he hadn’t hit the ground, she was too small for that, she didn’t cast a spell or anything- and left, and been stopped by the militia twenty minutes later.

Ms. Johnson looked at her for a long second. “I believe you,” she said, finally. “You just need to relay that to the court.”

“I’m not going to be expelled, am I?” Mavis asked worriedly. She’d already missed a lecture that she’d have to attend office hours for

“You didn’t do it,” Ms. Johnson said. “I don’t think you’ll be expelled. We’ll get you that acquittal.”

Then Ms. Johnson left to prepare some case documents, and moments later, Vinnie slipped through the door.

Mavis’s heart rose in her throat. “Vinnie, I’m so sorry- I didn’t do it, you _know_ I wouldn’t-”

She paused. Vinnie seemed different, somehow. Less floaty-flowery-gentle; the Vinnie that Mavis knew would never _glower_ like that, teeth sharp in her mouth, her normal dark eyeshadow suddenly making her purple eyes seem much more sinister. 

“You’re going,” Vin hissed, looking very different from the Vinnie that Mavis had dated for eleven months, “to make my life _very difficult._ At least you aren’t _intelligent_ enough to resist this.”

“What?” She reeled backward, blanching, unable to understand. Vinnie was her girlfriend, why was she being so mean? The thought of ever _disliking_ her, thinking that she could _do_ something like that, hurt her viscerally to think about- in a very real way- she could feel herself on the verge of taking literal psychic damage just thinking about it. She could never be mad at her-

 _  
_ Vinnie waved a hand, and Mavis blinked and wondered where Ms. Johnson had disappeared to, and how Vinnie had gotten there. “Mavie!” 

“Vinnie, I- oh Pan, I’m so sorry, Vinnie, I didn’t do it, he was just- he was talking so _badly_ about you!”

“What did he say?”

She found she couldn’t remember, but it must have been _bad,_ she knew, because she wouldn’t have pushed him otherwise. “I- I don’t want to say it,” she said, glancing away and tucking her hair behind her ear. “It was so _cruel,_ Vinnie.” 

She looked at her for a long second, and then smiled. “You’re always trying to make me feel better, Mavie.”

“I don’t- I don’t want to ask too much from you,” Mavis said, “but could you ask my roommates to come by one of these days and give me the college work I’ll be missing?”

Her face softened. “Of course.”

“I wish I could hold your hand,” Mavis blurted. “You’ll be at the trial, right?”

“Of course. When?”

“Tomorrow, I think. At least the preliminary hearing. Faerun’s one-week trial limit is a hot dinner debate topic for Andrew and Heather,” Mavis said. “For once, I’m siding with Andrew on the topic. I don’t know if a week is going to be long enough to gather all the evidence, you know?”

“You’ll get your acquittal,” Vinnie said. “I’m on your side, after all.” Her hair was still silky as the day they met, her eyes just as bright, and Mavis had never been more sure that she trusted her with her life. 

-

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, under the pains and penalties of perjury?”

“I do.” 

Mavis was standing behind the witness stand. She’d never been here; not even in mock trials; she had played plaintiff and prosecution and defense; in pairs, groups and individuals; done opening statements, closing statements, cross-examinations, direct examinations. She had never once been asked to be a witness. The court looked strange from this angle, foreign; faces fixed on her own, scrutinizing, examining her every motion. 

Her eyes sought Vinnie’s, and when she caught them she smiled as imperceptibly as she could manage and relaxed. Vinnie smiled back, a beam of sunlight in the dimly-lit room. She’d barely even noticed the opening statements because of how tense she was; Vin seemed to make it all melt away. 

“Could you please state your name, classes, and profession for the court please?” Ms. Johnson’s voice was smooth, careful, easy. It was a direct examination voice; wheedle the truth out, stay in the background, let the witness take the lead. Tell their story. The prosecution was a twitchy-seeming halfling; confident, no doubt, in his own abilities, but over-eager. She didn’t know whether or not she was supposed to exploit that.

Mavis swallowed. She looked to the judge. “My name is Mavis Roughridge-Highchurch. I am a first-level Bard, first-level Warlock, second-level Druid, third-level Wizard. I’m a part-time employee of the Trent Ecology Museum, and a second-year student at Oakleaf Law School.”

“What was your relationship to the victim, Mr. Swallow?”

“I didn’t have one, not really. He was my girlfriend Vin’s ex-boyfriend.” 

“Could you tell us what happened before the murder?”

She took a deep breath. “I- The victim sent a letter to the ecology museum, asking if I would meet him behind his workplace the next day- he’s a grad student, at Skyline, working in magichemistry. I was a little hesitant because I knew he was Vinnie’s ex, but I figured I could prepare a few shield spells the night before and I would-”

“Objection,” the prosecutor called. “We came here for _facts,_ not opinions on the victim.”

“Your Honor,” Ms. Johnson said carefully, “we need an accurate description of what happened that afternoon.”

The judge considered for a moment; he was a kindly-faced man, but he looked tired, and Mavis’s mind whirled, thinking of all the statistics she’d read about how the later your case was in the day, the more likely it was you would get a guilty verdict. “Sustained. You may keep the statement, but please focus on the facts.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Mavis said, ignoring the sheer _terror_ of having the judge sustain an objection from the opposition, playing with the hem of her suit jacket- imperceptible under the witness stand. Ms. Johnson had brought the suit from Mavis’s apartment that morning so she’d have something to wear to court; Vinnie’s pendant was tucked neatly beneath the collar.“I prepared Shield and then I left to meet him at the appointed time.”

“What was the appointed time?”

“3 in the afternoon. I had a shift, but I asked a coworker to cover it.”

“What happened when you went to meet him?”

“I met him there. He was holding an umbrella, because it was raining. I asked him what he wanted, because I had really never met him before, and he told me- he told-” Fuck, fuck, _fuck,_ Mavis couldn’t remember what he’d told her, and she remembered it was _something_ that made her feel very angry but every time she tried to think on it it slipped from her fingers. “He said some really cruel things about Vinnie, and took my health potion from my hand, and I got mad and pushed him. He barely moved, just looked kind of sad.”

“What did he say to you about Vin?”

“I-” Fuck. She had half a mind to lie, but she _couldn’t_ get convicted of perjury, she’d get kicked out of school. “I think I blocked them out of my memory. They were horrible things.” 

“You don’t remember any of the things he told you about Vin? About her character?” Ms. Johnson’s tone seemed urgent, and Mavis tried _valiantly_ to clutch at the memory, but it slipped from her fingers. 

It didn’t matter, anyway, because the prosecutor yelled, “Objection, your honor!”

_Oh, right, leading questions,_ Mavis thought, almost dazed. The courtroom seemed like it was spinning, almost, a hazy place, and she almost missed Vinnie’s gaze, intense and focused on her. As she met it, the room seemed to even out, as the tail end of the word “Sustained” finally met her ears; she hadn’t even noticed that the room was going mute. But Vinnie made everything right; Vinnie made everything make sense again.

Ms. Johnson’s voice made her snap back to attention. “Ms. Highchurch. How did you and Vin meet?”

“Objection! Relevance?”

“Just establishing a foundation,” Ms. Johnson said.

“Overruled. Defendant?”

“Uh! Well, it was actually really kind of sweet; I was in the courthouse library at this courthouse, grabbing some case files, and I was balanced on a stepladder. She startled me by accident, and I, um. I fell on top of her? And it was really awkward- because I was really flustered- until she complimented my sweater, and it just went from there? She gave me this pretty pendant as a memory of our meeting- I never take it off!” 

“Could you tell us about the push, the afternoon of the murder?”

“I- I stepped forward and shoved his stomach. He stepped backward, kind of shocked, I guess, and I heard a loud sound, but by that point, I was already leaving,” Mavis said. Why did she feel so uncomfortable all of a sudden?

“Your Honor, permission to roam?”

“Permission granted.” Ms. Johnson stepped into the well, heels clicking against the tile, and removed a broken umbrella in a bag from a large case under the defense bench.

“This piece of evidence has been marked for identification in pre-trial proceedings. Do you recognize this?”

“Yes,” Mavis said. “That was the umbrella the victim was holding.”

“Your Honor, forensics tests found the victim’s fingerprints on this umbrella. The defense requests that this umbrella be entered into evidence.”

_What is she driving at?_ With the limited time to try the case, Mavis had barely talked to Ms. Johnson- once in the courthouse lobby, in the corner, away from prying prosecutors’ ears, and twice before that in the jail- but never outside of that. She couldn’t even fathom a guess as to what the argument was here.

“Ms. Highchurch, could you tell us about what happened to the victim’s umbrella when he fell?”

Mavis thought about it for a moment, relieved when this memory came easier. “He might have stepped on top of it, I think; he dropped it when he grabbed my health potion.”

“Could you tell the court a little bit about that? The health potion, that is.”

“Objection!” the prosecutor announced. “Relevance?”

“The health potion was found in the victim’s hand when he died. I can enter it into evidence if you’d like, Your Honor,” Ms. Johnson said smoothly. Mavis found herself admiring her technique, even if it was, y’know, in her defense during a murder trial.

“Overruled. Ms. Highchurch?”

“The health potion was nothing fancy,” Mavis shrugged. “Just a lesser health potion; I think it restores something like 5d6 health, total? I was taking sips of it after every meal, because I’ve been coming down with a cold, and I really didn’t want to use the whole thing all at once if I could help it- law school loans are going to bankrupt me-” at this the judge smiled, and she did a little victory dance in her own head- “so I figured I could save a little bit of gold. I picked the bottle up at the apothecary, hm, four days ago? It was something like 5 silver, which is highway robbery, but-”

“Objection!”

“Ms. Highchurch, please try and keep your comments neutral.”

Crap. “Sorry, Your Honor.” She saw some of the jurors smiling a little, though, so it was _probably_ fine. “Yeah. 5d6 health potion from the apothecary up the street from Oakleaf Law.”

“Your Honor, I’d like to ask that this partially-ingested health potion-” at this Ms. Johnson held up the phial- “which was prior marked for identification, be submitted to evidence.”

“Very well, so marked,” the judge said.

“Ms. Highchurch, why did the victim take the potion from you?”  
  


“Objection! This question calls for speculation-”

“Sustained,” the judge said, and Mavis had to resist the urge to physically slump in relief. To tell the truth, she felt like she had once _known_ why, but the memories were slipping from her grasp like the conversation with Swallow had. She felt the room getting hazy again, and looked for her anchor, and saw it in Vinnie’s eyes. She couldn’t identify the emotion that had been there before, but Vinnie’s face melted into a smile and that was enough for her.

Ms. Johnson looked disappointed, and Mavis’s stomach twisted with guilt. She’d forgotten something essential, she knew. “No further questions, your honor,” she said as she returned to her seat. 

“Would the prosecution like to proceed with their cross-examination?”

“Certainly, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said, rising to his feet. “Permission to roam?”

“Granted.”

The prosecutor crossed into the well. His hair wasn’t fluffy; it was straight and almost greasy-seeming, and he seemed older; he was balding, and wore horn-rimmed glasses. “Ms. Highchurch. You are dating Ms. Vin, is that correct?” 

“Yes; we’ve been together for eleven months.” Where was he going with this? She knew firsthand the tactics of a cross-examination; she would have to try and dodge his traps, but his questions seemed innocuous enough for now. That would probably change soon.

“You are aware that she had broken up with the victim a week before entering her relationship with you?”

“Y- yes. But I only-”

“Just a yes or no answer will do,” he said, cutting her off smoothly. _Shit._ She’d hoped he wouldn’t be so quick to shutter that. “The victim spoke to you about Ms. Vin, is that correct?”

“Yes.” She’d better not try anything right now.

“He spoke badly of her?”  
  


“Yes.” Just _thinking_ of someone seeing Vinnie in a bad light was abysmal to think about.

“And that made you angry?”

“Yes, but I’d n-”  
  


“Thank you, Ms. Highchurch. Could you identify this picture for me?”  
  


She squinted at the picture he provided. “It’s- the crime scene.”

“Yes. And what is this?” He pointed to an object.

“Objection! The prosecution is asking for information on a picture that has not been submitted to evidence!”

“It’s been marked for identification,” the prosecutor sighed. “The witness has verified its validity. In fact, I request that this be admitted to evidence immediately.”

“Very well,” the judge said, looking a little surprised. Which was fair; it wasn’t really that common to just add evidence like that, but it was still valid, right?

“Could you identify this object?”

“It’s the broken umbrella that Swallow fell on.”  
  


“And what is this?”

“It’s- char marks around where Swallow was standing.”

“Do you recognize these char marks?”

“N-no.”

He looked frustrated, for a brief second, before it passed. “Could you hazard a guess as to what they were caused by?”

“Objection! Speculation!”

“That’s all right,” the prosecutor said before the judge could sustain it. “Ms. Highchurch, you are a druid, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And as a druid, you have immediate access to the spell Thunderwave, correct?”

“If I have it prepared. I don’t right now.”

“Doesn’t Thunderwave make a loud noise when cast?”

“It does, but-”

“Your Honor, allow me to read the official description of Thunderwave, according to _Intro Level Evocations._ ‘A wave of thunderous force sweeps out from the caster. Each creature in a 15-foot cube originating from the caster must make a Constitution save. On a failed save, the affected creature takes 2d8 thunder damage and is pushed 10 feet away. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage and isn’t pushed. In addition, unsecured objects that are completely within the area of effect are automatically pushed 10 feet away from you by the spell’s effect, and the spell emits a thunderous boom audible out to 300 feet.’

“Ms. Highchurch, would you say that the victim in this photo is about ten feet from where you were standing?”

  
“Yes, but-”

“And the umbrella could have snapped on impact, couldn’t it?”

“Objection!” Ms. Johnson finally cut in. “That calls for speculation!”

“That’s all right, I’m finished,” the prosecutor said.

Mavis fought to maintain composure, dazed, dizzy, hazy. The judge was asking Ms. Johnson something- probably whether she’d like to re-direct examine, and Ms. Johnson was accepting - why was she accepting?

She took a deep breath in and exhaled. _Clear my head. Clear my head._ Almost unconsciously, her eyes darted to Vinnie’s; she smiled reassuringly, and the room came back into focus.

“Ms. Highchurch, what first-level spells did you have prepared the afternoon of the murder?”

“I- the same spells I usually keep at the ready. I have a lot of classes, so it’s a bit of a list, but I had Create or Destroy Water, Detect Magic, Healing Word, Identify, and Shield prepared; through my Warlock and Bard training, I also had Disguise Self, Dissonant Whispers, Expeditious Retreat, Heroism, Illusory Script, and Unseen Servant.”

“When did you prepare those spells?”

“Uh, about 8 am, when I woke up. Actually, I took a moment to meditate in the afternoon, because I needed to switch one of my spells out. I woke up not expecting to need Shield, but like I mentioned earlier, I thought it was necessary. Before that, I had had Comprehend Languages prepared.”

“Meditate?”

“Yes, Druids can meditate in the middle of a long rest to switch out prepared spells. I’m not very good at it, but even I can manage a minute or three of it, so I just swapped them out easy-peasy in the afternoon; I was reviewing case precedents for my Maritime Law class, so it was a pretty passive activity.”

“How often do you prepare combat spells, like Thunderwave?”

“Barely ever,” Mavis said. “Almost all of my spells are defensive or utilitarian in nature; I don’t really pick fights often, if ever. If I really needed to, I could toss out a Dissonant Whispers, but that’s really the only aggressive spell I’ve ever had readied, and I’ve never used it.”

“What weapons do you keep on you, if any?”

“On me? Uh, the night of the murder I had a small dagger in my belt, but that’s really just habit and honestly I only ever use it to open boxes. I can use a shortbow, and I’ve got one in my apartment, but I haven’t used it in so long that at this point I think it needs restringing and I don’t actually own any arrows anyway.” She got what Ms. Johnson was driving at- trying to explain that there was no way she could have killed Swallow. The even tone was a welcome change of pace from the rapid-fire cross-examination.

“What kind of a noise does Thunderwave make, usually?”

“Hm, it’s been a while since I ever cast it- I think I did it _once,_ and it was in the middle of the desert by Goldcliff- but I’d call it a sort of boom? It echoes for ages.”

“And what time did you say that meeting was at?”

“Uh, 3 pm. Behind his workplace, on a workday.”

There was a sort of pleased smile on Ms. Johnson’s face. “Thank you, Ms. Highchurch. That’s all.”

-

They took a ten-minute recess before calling Vinnie to the witness stand. She was apparently to act as a character witness, which relieved Mavis to no end. If Vinnie was vouching for her, she would be fine.

“Are you okay?” Ms. Johnson was asking. “You seemed out of it today.”

Mavis managed a reassuring smile. “I think it was the cold, to be honest. I’m just a little light-headed. I’m just fine.”

“I wanted to ask you about the thing that happened during that first direct-examination,” Ms. Johnson said. “You told me in the holding cell that Mr. Swallow had made some pretty big accusations against Vin. But you didn’t bring any of them up in the court.” 

“I- I did? I-” She felt nauseous all over again. “I don’t remember.”  
  


“Mavis, are you feeling okay?” Ms. Johnson asked worriedly, putting a careful hand on her shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Mavis managed. “Just- what did I tell you?”

“That Mr. Swallow had said that you were being played for a fool,” she said, and her eyes were searching Mavis’s, but Mavis had no idea what expression she was showing back. “That Vin’s dad was convicted for the murder of forty civilians in Glamor Springs. That Vin seemed ready to take after her father.”

Mavis’s head spun. _No,_ _Vinnie would never- she would never-_

_But what if she did?_ asked a tiny voice in the back of her head, and Mavis clutched her head with both hands as a _searing_ pain made itself known behind her eyes. “Ghh,” she choked out. “I- no, no, Vinnie wouldn’t- she’d never- _gah-_ ”

She stumbled to a couch and pulled herself up onto it, barely able to do it even with both arms. “Ms. Johnson- I feel- _fuck-_ ”

“Mavis, Mavis- Mavis, look at me, honey.” Ms. Johnson was kneeling in front of her. When did she get there? Her hands were wrapped around Mavis’s, pulling them away from her hair. “Mavis, what’s going on?”

“Ngh,” Mavis said intelligently, and then, “I don’t know. _Hurts._ I- I don’t- I’m.”

Ms. Johnson glanced left and right rapidly, and then rested her hands on Mavis’s forehead. Instantly, the searing pain lessened, replaced by a cooling balm. She still felt _unmistakably shitty,_ but it was better.

“Thank you,” she managed. “I- I don’t know what’s going on, Ms. Johnson. It’s like I’m fuzzy all over- my head, I mean, it’s like, like a cactus replaced my brain.”

“We can’t miss the trial,” Ms. Johnson said, and if Mavis focused (with the help of a good Insight roll, for once) she could tell that there was an undercurrent of worry.

“No, we can’t,” Mavis said. “We only have a week. You’re- I- You’re doing great, Ms. Johnson.”

“Come on,” Ms. Johnson said. “Your girlfriend’s hitting the stand, and I don’t know how this is gonna go.”

Mavis stood shakily. “It’s gonna go great. Vinnie’s awesome. She’s gonna be great.”

-

She watched carefully from beside Ms. Johnson as Vinnie took the stand. She looked perfectly at ease; she’d chosen a sharp grey suit, and done her hair up. Her eyeliner was knife-sharp. She was a _vision._ Mavis was so in love with this girl.

She took the oath and introduced herself- Vin, a level 9 wizard, working currently at a local cafe. Mavis loved the place; it was a hole-in-the-wall little shop, just Vinnie and a couple of other employees. Their pastries were to-die-for, and Vinnie seemed to love their tea; she always pushed Mavis to buy one, and Mavis never told her that she didn’t actually like tea that much. 

“How long have you been dating Mavis Roughridge-Highchurch?”

“Eleven months,” Vinnie said. “What she said earlier about the meeting was accurate, though I don’t think I’d realized she was flustered; she was really smooth.” Mavis felt her face flare red. If Vinnie hadn’t been under oath, she’d have thought she was just saying it to flatter her! 

“What was your knowledge of the meeting?”

“Mavie sent me a message on my Stone, but only mentioned that she’d be talking to Dougie- Swallow, that is. I asked if she wanted me to come with her, and she said she’d probably be fine.”

“When did you find out about what happened?”

“I.” Vinnie shuffled nervously in place. “...I followed her to the meeting. I was worried about her.”

The whole courtroom went stock-still. Even Mavis froze. She’d followed her? That was… really sweet, actually. She was worried! 

Ms. Johnson took a beat, then recovered. “What did you see there?” 

Vinnie shifted again. “I don’t- I don’t know if I want to say.” 

“You can tell us anything,” the prosecutor said gently. Ms. Johnson glared at him for breaking protocol, but Mavis’s attention was fixed on Vinnie. What was she going to tell them? Why was she being so weird about it? She trusted Vinnie, though. 

“...I saw Mavie and Dougie, there. They were talking. Arguing. And then- Mavie got mad, and she stomped a little, and this huge wave of thunder just erupted. Dougie went flying. I tried to do something, but Mavie just ran away faster than I’d ever seen her run; I know she has Expeditious Retreat, so…”

Mavis, horrified, pinched her own leg. She wasn’t dreaming- Vinnie had just, just gone up on the witness stand, and she had stood there, and _lied,_ and _betrayed her-_

At those thoughts, a _piercing_ pain- like she’d been shot through the head with an arrow- split her, and she collapsed forward onto the desk, biting back a yelp of pain. Ms. Johnson looked at her, concerned. 

“Gh- nngh-” Mavis could barely see anything- it was _so much,_ just a deafening, head-shattering feeling, and through blurry eyes, she realized she was _bleeding._ From her nose and ears- all over the pristine defense bench- _Pan_ it hurt-

“Your Honor! The defense requests an hour’s recess!” She could barely hear Ms. Johnson shouting, clutching Mavis’s shoulders. “And a medic!”

“‘M a cleric,” Mavis managed fuzzily. “...be fine.” 

-

She woke up in the courthouse lobby, with a very concerned-looking Ms. Johnson and a tired-looking cleric at her side.

“ _Pan dammit,_ she said, then added a few choice curses in Elvish and Dwarvish, and then Druidic for good measure. “How long was I out?” 

“A minute or two,” Ms. Johnson said as the cleric got up. “You were on five hit points, Mavis. That’s not normal. Is that- regular, for you?”

“No, n-not at all.”

Ms. Johnson seemed to consider something for a moment. “What were you thinking?”

“Wh-”

“No, literally, what were you thinking about when you felt the pain?”  
  


“Um, well. I guess I was thinking about what Vinnie said on the stand.” It was too raw a wound to even think about in full detail, now. “And before that, what you told me about Vinnie.”

Ms. Johnson cursed under her breath. “What type of wizard is Vinnie?”

“I-” Huh. “I don’t know. I don’t think she’s ever mentioned it. The spells she uses are all small things, household.”

“Would an Enchantment wizard sound off base for her?”

“...No.”

“Shit. Do you happen to know any high-level bards?” 

“Uh, yeah, actually, why-”

She shoved Mavis’s Stone of Farspeech into her hands. “Call them. Tell them to get their ass over to the courthouse with a fifth-level spell slot and a magical focus ready, and if they don’t have one, then to get a bard- or a druid, I’m not picky- who does.”

“Uh, okay.” Mavis got up, moved to the other side of the courthouse lobby. It was emptier, here. She saw Ms. Johnson turn to the prosecutor and start talking, while she called Heather. 

“Mavis?” The voice was crackly. “Are you okay? I thought you had your trial today- how did it go?”

“It’s. It’s still going,” she said. “It’s- I’m not sure. It’s. I need you to come to the courthouse.”

“Shit, do they need me to be a witness?”

“Apparently I’m supposed to ask if you have a fifth-level spell slot and a magical focus.”

Heather whistled. “Yeah, I do. I- is everything okay?”

“Good question,” Mavis said, then spotted Vinnie coming over. “Listen, I’ve gotta go-”  
  


“No, yeah, of course. I’ll be right over.” 

She hung up, as Vinnie said, “Mavie.”

“Vinnie, I-”

“Mavie, I need you to do something for me, okay? I need you to do something, and it’s very important.” Mavis would do anything for her. _Anything._ She was hypnotizing- beautiful- _perfect._

“Anything,” she breathed.

“I need you to go to the single-stall bathroom. Make any excuses you have to. Use force if you need to. And I need you to eat the glass part of the necklace I gave you. In less than a minute, starting now.”

Mavis couldn’t even think. Of course she would. It would make Vinnie happy. She would do anything. She turned and was about to set off at a run, before realizing that she was still cuffed. She would have to ask the bailiffs first.

“Um, may I use the bathroom?” she asked, in her shyest voice possible.

“Go ahead,” the bailiff said. “We’ll wait outside.” 

And they did, as she headed in, and leaned over the sink, and shattered the glass in her hand- unheeding of the blood, unheeding of the pain- and swallowed it.

And then the spell broke. What was she _thinking?_ Oh, Pan. Oh, Pan. Holy shit, oh Pan, it hurt, _so much._ But Vinnie had- _Vinnie had_ \- 

Carefully, she took a gulp of water from the sink. She washed her palm and lips and cast Cure Wounds to heal herself. 

She re-emerged from the bathroom, and the bailiff clicked the handcuffs back on. Ms. Johnson was waiting for her. 

“Mavis, I need to ask you if I can use Detect Magic on you,” were the first words out of her mouth.

Mavis blinked. “P- pardon?” Her throat was scratchy and raw, and she swallowed; the act of it hurt, and she hoped Ms. Johnson wouldn’t notice. Or would chalk it up to crying or something. “I- why?”

Ms. Johnson glanced to one side. “I- Prosecutor Campbell and I had a theory, of sorts. Just- humor me?”

Mavis mulled it over for a second, but… if they really wanted to, it wasn’t like she had anything to hide, was it? “I guess so,” she told them.

The prosecutor- Campbell?- stood up, from where he had been sitting on a couch in the hallway, and pulled his wand from his pocket. “This won’t take but a moment.”

They sat there awkwardly for the six seconds it took to cast the spell, and then Prosecutor Campbell drew back, surprised. Mavis blinked at him. “What?”

“You have an _incredibly_ powerful enchantment on you,” he said. “Have you used this spell before? Usually, it’s just a little aura, like a tint or a sheen, but you’ve basically got an _opaque cloud_ of the magic surrounding you. There are wisps of it, too, like there was a second, weaker spell cast, that just wore off.”

“Mavis.” Ms. Johnson’s voice was commanding. “What did you just do?”  
  


Mavis sputtered, backing up several steps, eyes wide. “I- I didn’t- I-”

“What did you _do?_ ”

“I-” She swallowed, again. It hurt, again. “Gh. I- I’m not entirely sure. I just- I felt like I _had_ to, like it was the most important thing-”

“Dominate Person,” Campbell said, shooting a glance at Ms. Johnson, and Mavis suddenly felt like she’d missed several steps.

“What?”

“How close is your friend?” Ms. Johnson whirled on her. “The bard.”

“Uh- we live close, so probably almost here-”

“Good. Come on.” She didn’t quite grab Mavis- made an attempt to, remembered the handcuffs and bailiff because she was _on fucking trial for murder, Ms. Johnson,_ and marched her to the entrance. Mr. Campbell followed them, and Mavis just felt very lost. Where was Vinnie? Vinnie would make sense of all of this because she loved Vinnie.

Heather was, in fact, standing in the lobby when they made it there. “Hey, what’s going on-”

“I’m Ms. Highchurch’s attorney,” Ms. Johnson said. “We need you to cast Greater Restoration on her.”

“ _Greater Restoration?_ ” Mavis said. “Whatever for?”

Ms. Johnson silenced her with a Look, of the variety she had only gotten once, when she accidentally put an entire folder of papers through a shredder and Ms. Johnson had to spend the whole afternoon Mending them, so she shut up.

“We can answer your questions later, because I am sure you both have several. Right now we are on limited time and we aren’t sure what the effects of this enchantment spell are, though we have a good idea of who cast it.”

“O- Okay,” Heather said, looking a little ashen-faced. “Um. Should I just- like, right here, right now, or-”

“Right here, right now.”

“Wait, don’t you need my consent for these things usually-”

“Mavis, both I and Prosecutor Campbell have reason to suspect that you are under the influence of a _powerful_ spell, and as a result, you are unfit to make decisions pertaining to your own health. I have your power of attorney; unless you had some prior-undisclosed medical issue that you are only curing using a spell-”

“I don’t-”

“then there should be no problem. Bard, if you will?”

Heather furrowed her brows and removed her viol from her back, swiftly playing a short tune- some sixteen-bar phrase- and then gently touched Mavis’s shoulder with the bow.

Instantly, Mavis reeled backward. 

When Angus had gotten glasses, he’d told her it was amazing. Like something you never knew you’d missed. Suddenly he could see _everything;_ the leaves on the trees were no longer suggestions. He hadn’t even realized that there was the _option_ of seeing things in higher definition.

This, Mavis imagined, must have been what he felt like.

Her mind was _crystal clear,_ and her hands almost went to clutch her head; she hadn’t realized that her vision had been pink-hazy, her ears dulled, for what was most likely months. She could think _clearly,_ not through the tissue-paper haze she’d been working with. 

“Holy _Pan,_ ” she whispered.

“Mavis, are you- what’s going on?” Heather asked cautiously. “Your eyes just- _flashed._ ”

“Oh, _shit,_ ” she said. “It was a Geas, wasn’t it?”

Ms. Johnson nodded. “A powerful one. We don’t know what exactly, yet. But it was powerful enough that I suspected even the day you got it.”

“Vin cast it.” Her mouth was numb. “The Dominate Person, too. Probably a dozen more little ones.”

“Mavis, what’s going on?” Heather looked Very concerned, now.

“Vin,” she said. “She- I don’t know what, exactly. I don’t think she was what she seemed.”

“What do you need?”  
  


“I- I’m not sure. How long do we have until the recess ends?”

“Ten minutes,” Prosecutor Campbell told her. “Are you well enough to continue?”

“We have to end this today,” Mavis said, surprising herself with how fiercely it came out. “Heather, could you get me a cup of water? I think I just ate poisoned glass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More specific TWs: Gaslighting/lying; memory manipulation; verbal, physical, and emotional abuse; forcing someone to do things using magic; consuming dangerous non-food items; consuming poison. 
> 
> This chapter kind of got away from me? I was gonna just do the whole trial in this one, but then I was like, "it's already pushing 20 pages, fuck it" so it's being split in two. Next chapter, I promise, will have fewer trial proceedings, I'm just a dingus with a special interest in law. 
> 
> (The way the court system works in this fic is closer to a standard American court, with some of the elements from the Phoenix Wright court system thrown in- a mixture of both styles for evidentiary procedure, and of course the classic Ace Attorney absurd time limit. Just to spice things up a bit, and because I think Mavis would probably get kicked out of law school if she was in jail for three years pending hearing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this chapter! Comments and kudos are my caffeine; please consider leaving one to keep me awake through late writing sessions!


End file.
